MackCollier.com

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‘Be Awesome!’ is not a social media strategy, it’s a soundbyte

How many times have you heard this advice for having a great blog or social media presence?

‘Be Awesome!’

‘You have to join the conversation!’

Or my favorite advice, on how to get more Twitter followers, ‘Be worth following!’

The bottom line is that social media isn’t quick and easy.  If you want to REALLY have a successful social media program, you have to get your hands dirty.  You have to track, measure, tweak, compare, experiment, and break stuff.  I’ve been blogging here for two years, and still can’t tell you what the exact ROI of my efforts here are.  But during those 2 years I have been constantly searching for the answer, and my efforts here have improved dramatically.

Of course, if I’d listened to the ‘rockstars’ in this space, I would have known exactly what I had to do:

1 – Write great stuff

2 – Write every day

3 – Write short posts 300-500 words

That’s all there is to it, if you listen to some people.  The business reality is that every company is going to have to invest time and energy into a successful social media program.  It won’t be easy, but as Ian added, most important things are hard.

And if anyone tells you that all you have to do is ‘Be Amazing!’, then they aren’t trying to help you, they are trying to get retweets.

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How to overcome your boss’ objections to using Social Media

In the last post, we talked about some ideas for selling your boss on why your company or organization should use social media.  But if you are having to ‘sell’ the boss on social media, that probably means she is skeptical, and probably has a set list of reasons why she does NOT think social media is a good option.  You need to address those concerns head on, and here’s how to tackle the objections you are most likely to hear:

1 – We don’t have time for social media. Social media is a big time requirement, but most companies don’t have to start from zero.  Often, you can take existing content and repurpose it for your blog or even Twitter and Facebook presences.  For example, if you have any whitepapers, or articles, or interviews, or even videos that you’ve created, these can be used as content sources for your social media efforts.

2 – Social media wouldn’t work for us, since no one is talking about us online. This is a big misconception that many companies have, especially smaller ones.  If no one is talking about your company online, that is often a POSITIVE, not a negative!

Think about it, if you are a big brand, then part of your social media efforts involve monitoring and responding to hundreds if not thousands of daily brand mentions online.  So that big brand is having to REACT to an EXISTING conversation that it’s customers are creating about and around the brand.

But a smaller company that doesn’t have any online mentions can CREATE the online conversation about them.  They don’t have to react to the conversation that their customers are creating.  So while the big brand is responding to and attempting to reframe the existing conversation, the smaller company has the advantage that they are the ones creating that conversation.

3 – Our current marketing efforts are just fine. If done smartly, your current marketing efforts, especially online, can be enhanced by social media.  For example, a blog can help drive qualified traffic to your website, which can increase sales, as we discussed in the last post.  Also, content you create for your blog can help provide inspiration and content for your email newsletter.

4 – We don’t know what to do or which tools to use. Here’s where you will need to do a bit of research, but you can often take your cues from how your current and potential customers are using social media.  If they are mostly on Twitter, then it’s a good indication that make your company should have a presence there as well.  And once you launch your social media efforts, as you are monitoring your online mention, you can track WHERE these mentions are happening.  Are they coming from blogging customers, or maybe message boards?  This gives you a great idea of which tools you should be using, and where you should be spending your time.

5 – Social media is just a fad. Social media has been around for 20 years, at least.  Even in the late 1980s, I was creating content on message boards on local BBSes, then in the 90s on online services such as Prodigy and AOL.  I think the main difference in the current version of these tools and sites is that it’s now easier than ever for individuals to create content, and it can be on their own site (blog) or even pull content from a centralized site (Twitter) to their site, via widgets.

As more customers get more advanced smartphones, these social media tools are following the phone, which means customers now have the ability to create content on the go.  Such as quickly taking a picture and immediately posting it to Twitter or their blog.  So social media has been around for a while, and isn’t going away any time soon.

So there are some ideas for countering possible objections to social media that your boss might offer.  If you have a specific question about how your company can convince your boss to use social media, either leave a comment for all of us, or email me and I will be happy to help!

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How to sell your boss on using Social Media

Ready to have ‘the talk’ with your boss?  The one where you make your case for why it’s time for your company to start using social media (what talk did you think I meant?!?)?  Here’s some tips for helping you make your case:

1 – Don’t talk buzzwords, talk tangible business benefits.  Only mention things like comments, Facebook Likes and Twitter followers IF you also explain how they relate to things like sales, conversions and leads.  Make your case for why your company should use social media by showing your boss how it will help your company generate sales, and/or lower costs.

2 – Point out how social media can help your company build its awareness.  A lot of people focus on ‘the conversation’, but using social media is a wonderful way to increase search placements and traffic.  For example, yesterday I wrote a post titled How to write good blog content.    Here’s a screenshot I took of the Google results for the term “How to write good blog content” right before I wrote this post:

The #1 Google result just a few hours after publishing the post.  Not too shabby.  And this perfectly illustrates how blog content can help your company’s search results.  Maybe even to the point where your company can lower or eliminate its SEM budget?

3 – Social media can make your marketing more effective.  Look at your existing online marketing efforts and how success is judged.  Show your boss how social media can compliment those efforts, making them more effective and efficient.

For example, a blog will help drive qualified traffic to your website.  Let’s say you provide lawn-care services, and you write a post entitled ’10 Steps to Having an Insect-Free Lawn by June’, and someone arrives at that post by Googling the term ‘getting rid of insects in my lawn’.  And let’s say that in that post, you give wonderful advice about ridding a lawn of insects, and add a call to action inviting the reader to visit your website if they want to schedule an appointment with you.  Anyone that arrives at your site from visiting that post is probably going to be a potential customer, or qualified lead.  So the blog is enhancing the website’s ability to sell your services.

So those are some quick tips to helping you convince your boss to use social media.  The problem is, your boss is likely to have a few objections to using social media.  We’ll talk about how you can address and counter your boss’ objections to social media, in the next post.

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How to write good blog content

During the last #Blogchat, at one point the discussion shifted to writing good content on your blogs, and what defined ‘good’ content.

Most of us seemed to fall into one of two camps: People that said that good content created value for your audience, and people that said that good content created value for the blogger.  With the general consensus being that if you are a business blogger, that your content was written for someone else.  And if you are a personal blogger, you are writing for yourself.

Then I got to thinking about my blogging here.  Ultimately, this blog is a business development tool for me.  I use it as a tool to grow my business and get more consulting and training clients.  But I also want and am very thankful for those of you that leave comments here and contribute to the conversation.  So while the actual comments and conversations we have might not have as much of an impact on my business as the content itself, it has an impact on ME.

Which I think is an important issue to consider.  Even those of us that are business bloggers need to get a sense of personal fulfillment from our blogs.  It keeps us motivated and inspired.  Sure, getting money from your blog is always inspiring, but making personal connections with people and creating value for them via your content, is also very rewarding.

In my mind, the best bloggers are the ones that create their content with a specific audience in mind, but they also have a personal attachment to their readers.  As a result, even their ‘business’ blogs aren’t stiff and boring, they are even personable and inviting.

What do you think?  Should your blog content and approach combine personal and professional elements to be more effective?  Or should your blog’s focus be completely one or the other?

How do you write for your blog?  What’s your approach?

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Will there be a LIVE #Blogchat at SXSW?

One of the most frequent questions I have gotten in the past few months when I attend or speak at events is ‘Have you ever thought about doing a live #Blogchat?’

In fact, I have.  And what I would like to do is find a smart company that wants to sponsor a LIVE #Blogchat during SXSW.  In looking at the SXSW schedule, we could even do it on Sunday nite, March the 13th.  That way, we could have a live #Blogchat in Austin, but also have the regular #Blogchat on Twitter during the same time.  Which would mean we could also take points raised and questions asked on Twitter by #Blogchatters, and incorporate them into our live conversation at SXSW.  Additionally, we usually start mingling and networking an hour before #Blogchat starts each week, at 7pm Central.  We could do the same thing at SXSW, this would give the people that are going to join us live in Austin a chance to meet each other, and the sponsor as well.

For participants, I think it would be an amazing learning experience, and a great way to meet so many people we’ve probably already connected with during past #Blogchats.

For the sponsor, I see several key benefits:

  • Minimum of 2 hours exposure with some of the true leaders in the social media space, both at the event, and on Twitter.
  • Since it will be the 1st LIVE #Blogchat, I will be promoting it on Twitter and my blog for the next 2 months, which will only draw a bigger crowd.
  • You’ll get a TON of useful advice from some of the smartest minds in social media.  This alone would pay for the sponsorship.
  • Sponsoring the event would bring a good deal of positive exposure to the sponsor.

Also, if it makes sense from the sponsor’s point of view (especially if they are a blogging company), I’d like to have a representative from the sponsor join me at SXSW and co-host the live #Blogchat.

And to be clear, I’ve already talked to a few potential sponsors who have expressed interest in this idea, but no one has committed yet.  So if this idea sounds like something your company or organization is interested in learning more about, please email me.

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5 reasons why companies should spend LESS time listening to social media experts

If you work at a company and are passionate about social media, and passionate about getting your company to use social media, then you are probably spending a lot of attention to the supposed social media experts.  The most influential bloggers and Twitter users.  The ‘rockstars’.

Here’s 5 reasons why that’s probably not a good idea.

1 – Social media experts gravitate to shiny things.  If you are active on Twitter especially, then you have probably heard about the shiny social media site of the moment; Quora.  Quora is basically a Q&A site that despite having functionality similar to most other Q&A sites, seems to suddenly have everyone buzzing.

The problem is, ‘shiny’ doesn’t always equal ‘useful’ when it comes to social media for companies.  What you should do with Quora is monitor company mentions.  You should already have a monitoring system in place (even if it’s just Google Alerts, which you can set up in 5 mins), and this will let you track company mentions on Quora and other sites.

With most ‘shiny’ social media sites and tools, it’s best to be aware, but to not jump in headfirst.  Why?  Because often the ‘buzz’ around a shiny social site is driven by hype more than utility.  In general, it’s best to let the hype die down then see what happens.  If the value is there, people will stick with it.

And before anyone comments, I am not slamming Quora.  I have plenty of friends that love the site, and to be honest, I have barely spent an hour with it.  My only point is, I tend to tune out and wait when I see sites like Quora suddenly getting super-hyped.  I did the same thing with Identica and Kwippy, and yes, even Twitter.

2 – What works for social media experts might not work for your company.  Most social media experts will tell blogging companies that they must have as many comments as possible.  That interaction and engagement is all that matters.  They probably get a bunch of comments on their blog, so they tell companies they need comments as well.

Guess what?  Most companies could give a rat’s rump if they ever get a comment on their blog.  They want LEADS and BUSINESS from the blog.  But most social media experts have difficulty explaining how companies can get leads and business from their blogging efforts, so they talk about things they know: such as getting comments and RTs.

3 – There is no one-size-fits-all solution to social media.  Twitter is the textbook example of this. I have literally changed the way I use Twitter a dozen or more times in the last 4 years.  I used to follow more people than followed me.  Then I followed almost no one, now I follow anyone that interacts with me on Twitter, or that I have met.

The point is, there are few, if any, social media rules that apply to EVERY company’s efforts.  For example, many social media experts will say that a blogging company should try to blog every single day.  And at minimum, they should write 3 new posts a week.

And confession time, I used to think this as well when I started blogging almost 6 years ago.  The a funny thing happened: I started getting so busy with consulting work that I couldn’t blog every day.  I had to make the choice between blogging every day, or working on client work every day.  Guess which one won?

The solution is: Pick a posting schedule that works for YOUR situation.  My best advice is to pick a schedule that you can stick with.  If you *think* you can write 2 new posts a week, start out shooting for once a week, then build up to 2 a week if you can.

4 – Social media experts often write for each other, not for companies.  How many times have you read a well-known social media person write a blog post or a tweet just ripping another well-known social media person?  It happens far too often.  So why does it happen?  Because almost every time there is an ‘I’m calling bullshit on…’ post, it gets views.  And comments, and RTs.  And traffic.

But does it get them business?  Maybe it does, but the next time I hear a social media consultant tell me they got a project because they ripped one of their peers, will be the 1st time.  But I often hear of companies that have specifically NOT hired an expert or consultant based on something they said online.  Good manners matter, and no amount of RTs or pageviews or comments make up for a lack of civility.

5 – Social media experts are using social media in a way that works for THEM.  One person.  So obviously, attempting to mimic the way one person uses social media and applying it to the social media efforts of a Fortune 500 company, might not be the best course of action.

This is not to say that you can’t learn from how the experts and thought leaders are using social media.  Because you can, and yes I am being slightly self-serving when I say that.  But you should never assume that you should use social media in a certain way, simply because someone you read or follow, does.  Maybe their method for using a particular site or tool can work for your company as well, but you shouldn’t blindly adopt using the site or tool the same way simply because that’s how they do it.

Don’t blindly adopt, but don’t blindly dismiss either

Your company should be aware of what the leaders and experts in this space are saying and doing.  But you shouldn’t do anything simply because they are, nor should you dismiss their methods simply because you believe that ‘social media experts’ are all ‘snake oil salesmen’.  Look for trends, ways that most of the leaders in this space are using social media, or what they are teaching, and look critically at their lessons and if they can apply to your company’s efforts.  Don’t view them as a ‘cheatsheet’ for using social media, but rather as another resource for your company.

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#Blogchat topic for 1-23

Ok guys I’ve created a poll for tonite’s #Blogchat topic!  Vote for your favorite, the poll will close at 7pm Central, or an hour before #Blogchat starts!

And if you’ve never joined #Blogchat, here’s what it’s all about.

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All types of Social Media Engagement are not created equally

Sankar left a great comment to my last post about Measuring What Matters in Social Media:

In my understanding, I think that instead of going by just the number of fans, followers, friends, a company has, it would be practical and logical to understand their level of participation.

Just to give you an example, if we are going to find out the success of Starbucks’s the Betacup challenge, we can see how many have read/viewed/tweeted/bloged about it – first level of participation, and how many have become registered members and reviewed others ideas, (this denotes a higher level of participation), and how many have actually proposed new ideas (obviously, a higher level of participation).

I think this reinforces a great point: You should think about not only the different types of participation and engagement you want around your social media efforts, but also, how you prioritize and link those activities.

For example, let’s say you are using the list in the graphic above to prioritize the levels of engagement you want on your company blog.  Sharing the blog posts would be lower than commenting on them.  But if you knew from examining your analytics that people that share one of your posts on a social site were far more likely to subscribe to the blog (which is a higher priority than commenting), then perhaps you would want to encourage sharing, since it would lead to the higher-priority activity of subscribing to the blog.

Also, how can you encourage a visitor to engage in a more ‘valuable’ activity to you?  How can you convert a reader into a subscriber, or a commenter, into a buyer?  By prioritizing the level of possible engagement activities associated your blog, you can get a better sense of how each activity relates to your ultimate goal for the blog.

Does this help?  Have you made a list of which types of activities you want your readers to take on your blog, and how each ties back to your company’s blogging goals?  Please leave a comment, or if you would rather, email me your thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

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Measure what matters when it comes to social media

Just read a great eMarketer interview with Nationwide’s Director of Social Media, Shawn Morton.  Check out this quote from Shawn on social media measurement:

“Social media and digital are really easy to measure, but we don’t always know what the values are. You can easily count clickthroughs. You can easily count Facebook fans. You can easily count Twitter followers. But until you put a value on those, as a company, or sometimes for a specific campaign, they can be difficult to evaluate.”

Bingo.  The same thing we were talking about when we discussed fixing a broken social media strategy.  If you are going to measure Twitter followers and use it as a way to quantify the success of your efforts, then you’d better have a internal value attached to each Twitter follower.

Pretty interesting interview with Shawn (who’s a great guy, BTW), so check it out!

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Breaking Marketing Barriers From the Top of a Harley

In 2007 I was honored to be one of over 100 authors that contributed to the first Age of Conversation edition.  The project was conceived and executed by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan.  Gavin and Drew brought together over 100 of the smartest marketing minds to give their thoughts on what The Age of Conversation meant to them.  What’s fascinating about the book is it’s a snapshot of an online world in 2006-2007 where social media was still very new for many companies.  We were writing with eyes wide open about the possibilities of a hyper-connected world where customers were more empowered than ever.

The proceeds from this edition benefited Variety, The Children’s Charity, which is a big reason why I was so excited to be involved.  The book itself was written by over 100 of the smartest online marketers on the planet (Gavin and Drew, Ann Handley, David Armano, CK, Scott Monty, etc etc etc) and Amazon still has a few copies of the original edition left.

For the first time ever, here is my chapter from The Age of Conversation, I hope you enjoy it:

Breaking Marketing Barriers From the Top of a Harley

How Companies Can Better Understand Their Customers, By Joining Them

Willie Davidson, the Chief Styling Officer at Harley-Davidson, was once asked if the company makes any special efforts to better understand its customers.  Davidson replied that the motorcycle maker was in constant contact with its customers, because they rode with them all the time.

What may at first seem like a flippant response, actually makes perfect business sense.  What better way to understand your customers, than by using your product with them in their space?  When Davidson rides his Harley with fellow Harley owners, he is able to not only experience the motorcycle as other owners do, but to also share that experience with them.  The company/customer barrier is removed, and Willie instead becomes a member of the community of Harley riders.

Why is this so important?  Because people don’t trust advertising, they trust each other.  And companies can’t market their products effectively if they don’t understand their customers’ wants and needs.  When a company begins to interact with its customers in their space, they begin to communicate with them.  This communication leads to understanding.  And when a company better understands the wants and needs of its customers, it can more effectively market its products to them.  And more efficient marketing is cheaper marketing.

Willie knows that he could spend thousands of dollars on marketing research and surveys that would be designed to tell him more about Harley-Davidson’s customers.  Or he could simply hit the open highway with fellow Harley owners, and become a part of their community.  He could hear firsthand what fellow Harley owners liked and disliked about their motorcycle.  He could better explain Harley Davidson’s products and marketing.  By communicating, both parties have a better understanding of each other.

The problem is that in many cases there are two communities; the company, and its customers.  Each community has its own wants and needs, and its own way of talking to each other.  As a result, neither group really understands or trusts the other.

But when a company makes an effort to join its customers in its space, that barrier begins to fall.  The ideas and language of the company begins to seep into the customers’ space.  Likewise, the thoughts and opinions of the customers start to become understood by the company, and shape its marketing messages.  Slowly, the line that divides a company from its customers begins to disappear.

Eventually, conducting market research can become as simple as riding a Harley with your friends.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

Pic of Harleys on the Open Road by Flickr user DanieVDM